first off, I am not 100% sure a god of some sort doesn't exist. However, the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

An eternal universe makes more sense to me than it having a beginning. Honestly though, learning how/if the universe was created while interesting, will have no impact on my life.

No, its more like evolutionists have NO answer for it, and therefore the MUST believe matter is eternal in order to believe in evolution, regardless of whether or not it is likely to be true. It is a mandatory forced position. It's not that such a thing is likely.

No, its more like evolutionists have NO answer for it, and therefore the MUST believe matter is eternal in order to believe in evolution, regardless of whether or not it is likely to be true. It is a mandatory forced position. It's not that such a thing is likely.

saying I don't know is better than "god did it". Scientists go to where the evidence leads.

Most scientists do not adhere to the big bang theory anymore. In my opinion it is an example of pseudo-science that establishes hypothesis as theory to explain observations without the ability to test the hypothesis. A common popular response, unfortunately, is to endorse these theories without proof (testing the hypothesis). In the case of creation, there will never be a absolute understanding of the actual events because the experiment (creation) cannot be repeated in a controlled environment for observation. The best we will ever have are theories that seek to explain a past, unobserved event. Theories include "big bang", "God", and for life on earth "God", "Spontaneous Evolution", and the "flying speghetti monster". All require faith on interpretation of current conditions without testable data.

saying I don't know is better than "god did it". Scientists go to where the evidence leads.

I just want to highlight the phrase "I don't know" being acknowledged by an atheist who believes in evolution. I think its great the honesty shown here, that the THEORY of evolution is not FACT, it is a best guess.

I think you are wrong though, I find the conclusion of a creator to be more logical than throwing your arms up in the air or forcing an answer that doesn't make sense.

really? any evidence to back that statement up. preferably not from the discovery institute?

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_there_a...Theory_is_true
"The Big Bang, as more evidence comes in, is finding more scientists who disagree with it - not due to a sudden conversion to Creationism, but because the evidence is turning against it. Like many old paradigms, it still has its zealous adherents. But more scientists (not only Creation Scientists but evolutionists as well) are seeing data which does not fit it well. So, the direction in science is not towards the Big Bang but away from it - or at least, there is an acknowledgment that it doesn't fit some of the latest data. Of course the failure of the Big Bang to explain all the data will not lead to a sudden stampede towards creationism as previously stated. Either the Big Bang theory itself will be drastically revised or abandoned for another theory which also fits with the long-age evolutionary paradigm. "

Astronomers' New Data Jolt Vital Part of Big Bang Theory

Published: January 3, 1991

"A critical element of the widely accepted Big Bang theory about the origin and evolution of the universe is being discarded by some of its staunchest advocates, throwing the field of cosmology into turmoil.

According to the Big Bang theory, matter from the explosive moment of cosmic creation originally was evenly spread throughout the universe. But galaxies tend to be clumped together, an awkward fact that astronomers have sought to explain by assuming that cold invisible matter is a major attractive force.

This cold dark matter model accounts well for local clustering but could not explain the giant superstructures recently found in galactic surveys, like a string of galaxies called the "great wall," which stretches across the sky for at least half a billion light-years. Highly Accurate Survey

A new analysis of a highly accurate survey by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite now shows the universe to be full of such superstructures and companion supervoids. A problem is that these structures appear to be far too vast to have formed since the Big Bang.

The analysis has led a team of British and Canadian scientists to conclude that "there is more structure on large scales than is predicted by the standard cold dark matter theory of galaxy formation." In a report being published today in the journal Nature, they said the theory in its present form must be abandoned.

The journal noted that the report by Dr. Will Saunders of Oxford University and colleagues was "all the more remarkable for coming from a group of authors that includes some of the theory's longtime supporters."

With its repeated inability to reconcile the evidence and the theory, cosmology is in disarray, trying to patch together a modified version of the theory, testing alternative concepts that had been set aside and looking for entirely new theories to explain how the universe got to be the way it is observed today.

"We're floundering around with lots of ideas," said Dr. Alan Dressler, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, regretting the apparent demise of a theory that was widely held for more than a decade. "The one idea that was too good to be true turned out to be too good to be true."

Dr. Jeremiah P. Ostriker, an astrophysicist at Princeton University, said the results of the survey by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, showing the wider distribution and greater density of galactic clusters, "sounded the death knell" to the cold dark matter theory. "

BIG BANG THEORY UNDER FIRE 1 William C. Mitchel
( As Published in Physics Essays Volume 10, Number 2, June 1997)

"In one of its several variations the big bang cosmological theory is almost universally accepted as the most reasonable theory for the origin and evolution of the universe. In fact, it is so well accepted that virtually every media article, story or program that touches on the subjects of astronomy or cosmology presents the big bang (BB) as a virtual proven fact. As a result, the great majority of the literate populace of the world, including most of the scientists of the world, accepts big bang theory (BBT) as scientific fact.

Education establishments involved in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, theoretical physics and cosmology are dominated by those who have accepted BB as the theory to be pursued. Scientists who seriously question the BB are generally considered disruptive, ridiculed and derogatorily referred to as big bang bashers.

As a result of that attitude alternate cosmological possibilities are left uninvestigated. Untold man-hours and vast sums of money are spent in pursuit of data in support of the prevailing theory. Such endeavors are not in keeping with the ideals of impartial scientific investigation. It is all but forgotten that the BB is not fact, but an unproven theory.
Fortunately there long has been an unindoctrinated minority of scientists, both amateur and professional, who continue to discover and present observational evidence and logic that provides reason to doubt the accepted paradigm. Some of better known and most effective of the scientists in this struggle are Halton Arp of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, Anthony Peratt of the Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Jayant Narlikar of the Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in India. Other well known astronomers/cosmologists who have long fought for the proper consideration of alternate cosmologies include Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, Fred Hoyle, Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold and Eric Lerner.

Due to the efforts of those and other fighters for evenhanded cosmological investigation and, despite the powerful influence of mainstream BB cosmologists, evidence against the BB has been building to the point where the world may soon start to doubt it. Some of that evidence is briefly reviewed in this paper."

No, its more like evolutionists have NO answer for it, and therefore the MUST believe matter is eternal in order to believe in evolution, regardless of whether or not it is likely to be true. It is a mandatory forced position. It's not that such a thing is likely.

why are you bringing evolution into this? The two theories are not related.

The farther the Hubble Space Telescope looks into space, the more galaxies that are found. Earlier, astronomers estimated that there were about 80 billion galaxies in the universe. Now, the universe has grown to an estimated 125 billion galaxies. Want to bet that with the next improvements in celestial observation, the universe will expand again?

The current time/distance that the Hubble Space Telescope sees is estimated at eleven billion light-years. That figure is considerably older than the universe was thought to be just a few years ago.

The limits to the universe are predicated on the concept of a Big Bang. The Big Bang was an explanation for the concept of the red-shift of light. The farther away the star (or galaxy) is, the redder the light, which was interpreted by the idea that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us.

A simpler explanation is that light loses energy as it travels through millions of light years of space. Now that Anastasovski has shown an interaction between photons and charged particles -- the photon can lose energy by such an interaction. Therefore, the photon having less energy would appear to be red-shifted. There are a lot of charged particles in the space between here and 11 million light years away. Now we have explained the red shift, we don't need the Big Bang.

I just want to highlight the phrase "I don't know" being acknowledged by an atheist who believes in evolution. I think its great the honesty shown here, that the THEORY of evolution is not FACT, it is a best guess.

I think you are wrong though, I find the conclusion of a creator to be more logical than throwing your arms up in the air or forcing an answer that doesn't make sense.

I would like to say here that your use of the word theory is wrong. A scientific theory is not just a "best guess" a working scientific theory is much more than your common everyday use of the word theory.

Just to reiterate what Mike said, in another way.
"Theory" and "Hypothesis" are commonly and incorrectly interchanged. A "theory" is a tried-and-true, well established and understood description of a phenomenon. For example, the theory of the operation of an internal combustion engine. The operation of an internal combustion engine is very well known (by those involved with such things). An hypothesis is constructed from "educated guesses" and is malleable as work (experiments, data collection/analysis) continues.
Few people are well versed in multi-dimensional (10+) dynamics, multi-verses, space-time continuum, worm holes, hyperspace, etc. It would take an incredible amount of time (pretty much impossible) for the average working person, to even partially understand what many of the people who work on these matters (who are sincere, hard-working folks) have spent their entire lives on. Kip Thorne, John Wheeler, Lee Smolin, Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Vera Rubin are only a few of very many people looking for answers----with absolutely NO consideration of religious implications----it simply isn't part of the work. A study of the Copernican Revolution and its affect on the development of western thought would go a long way in finding some mental comfort for seemingly unanswerable questions (with our own unskilled thinking).
Whatever, it sure is interesting.

"In science a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. For the scientist, "theory" is not in any way an antonym of "fact". For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behavior are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and the general theory of relativity."

Big Bang cannot be tested or even empirically observed. It is a proposed idea about how something happened millions of years ago that cannot be tested nor observed.. Likewise, the idea of evolution as a means of divergence of species existing on earth today cannot be tested nor observed. It is a system of taking current observations (not observations of changes, just current conditions) and creating a story to how it could have occurred.

You guys are idiots. You squabble about things you can't comprehend yet you have more pressing issues over simple survival and pathetic tax forms. Get back on track and educate yourself with the basics and master them first. You people have thousands of years before you can even grasp the understanding of where a simple carbon atom came from let alone the universe. Stupid mortals.

You guys are idiots. You squabble about things you can't comprehend yet you have more pressing issues over simple survival and pathetic tax forms. Get back on track and educate yourself with the basics and master them first. You people have thousands of years before you can even grasp the understanding of where a simple carbon atom came from let alone the universe. Stupid mortals.

You guys are idiots. You squabble about things you can't comprehend yet you have more pressing issues over simple survival and pathetic tax forms. Get back on track and educate yourself with the basics and master them first. You people have thousands of years before you can even grasp the understanding of where a simple carbon atom came from let alone the universe. Stupid mortals.

Kerwin thinks I can't talk to god (it likes to NOT draw attention to itself)...but, that being said, god has a pretty good sense of humour....hence it's untiring capacity to accomodate those who spout off like our friend here....god talks to me, every day, in voice, in english, when no one else is around.....i'm the last person i thought it would contact, but hey, there it is......you're wrong, Kerwin...god told me so...however, i'm sure you'll refute me....have a good go, but you'll still be wrong....it told me so.

__________________
"Strange women lying in ponds and distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."